


Mango Worms

by StorytellerSecrets



Series: Sadness Is A Disease (And You're Infected) [2]
Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: Allen Walker Needs a Hug, Angst, Child Soldiers, Dark, Extended Metaphors, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Introspection, Introspective Story, Lavi Needs A Hug, Lenalee Needs A Hug, Less Sad Than The Last Fic, Levierre Can Go Fuck Himself, Link Not Being An Asshole, Mango Worms, Metaphors, Other, Parasites, Sad, Sad themes, Trypophobia, Trypophobia Warning, Worms, but with no hugs, like that's it boom, low-key huggy fic, they all need hugs tbh, this is all about mango worms and children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-27
Updated: 2018-11-27
Packaged: 2019-09-01 04:34:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16758058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StorytellerSecrets/pseuds/StorytellerSecrets
Summary: Mango worms are like this, he remembers. The eggs penetrate the skin without anyone noticing, and they grow directly underneath your skin. They grow, ripe, red welts following their arrival, until the worm pops out of the sore.No one notices, until they do.





	Mango Worms

**Author's Note:**

> Guys there are so many mango worm references jklsdf like idk what to tell you man but I was in another Mood and this happened. On another note, this fic is less sad than the last one so that's cool I guess.

Allen walker is decaying like the slimy flesh of a rotten fruit. He’s a squalid plum weeks past overripe. He looks fine, externally, but the second someone cuts even a millimeter into him, he’s all mush and flies and maggots. Mango worms leave holes in everything they touch, and he is not immune to their wretched grasp.

(His heart has a hole, and this time, it isn’t from a Noah.)

He isn’t eating, but that’s largely because he just _can’t_ , his body rejecting everything he needs, a colourful fly buzzing above his head as his body purges it’s nutrients. Maybe he’s sick, maybe he’s scared, or maybe his body is trying to kill itself. It’s probably all three of them, honestly. (He doesn’t really care, either way.)

Regardless of the reason, he’s losing weight so fast it’s like he’s shedding a skin. Goodbye muscled arms, hello twigs the size of...well, twigs. He’d be more angry about it if he wasn’t so angry about being in a cage in the first place. (Besides, he doesn’t like to think about it. The sharp indents of his bones look like holes, and that’s the last thing he wants to be thinking about.)

The fact that there’s a bitter Noah constantly trying to play body-snatchers with him doesn’t help. Truthfully, he’s got a lot in common with the Noah, and if he had the time (or the means), he’d probably find some common ground.

As it is, he can’t talk to Neah like Neah sometimes does to him (it’s a one-way connection, apparently). So, he suffers, just like he’s always done, and the only one who sees is wrapped in so many metaphorical chains that Allen’s manacles seem small in comparison.

(If Kanda was there, he’d be kicking Allen so hard in the shins it’d leave bruises for weeks. And after that, he’d pick his friend up and take him away to a place where there wasn’t any flies at all.)

(Kanda wasn’t there, but Link was. It’s not the same, but it makes all the difference.)

* * *

Link watches with a keen and desperate eye, silently burning with frustration as his first friend falls apart. (Tokusa and Tewaku and Madarao were his family, but Allen’s no less important.) But what can he do? This is a war, there’s no changing that. (But they’re also children, and this is all just so _unfair_.) He can’t run away, but he can’t watch his friend die in front of him (he can’t, not again).

“Please,” he begs Allen to eat, ready to bow and scrape to the boy and anyone else who can help, and is so, so relieved when he finally does, choking down the mush Link feeds him. If all it takes is a little groveling to help keep his friend a little safer, he can do that (he’s been doing it all his life).

The distant memory of him feeding Tewaku a maggot-filled apple makes him clench his hands and grind his teeth. He’d begged for that apple to keep his little sister alive, and he’d do it again.

(And if he goes later, walking into Levierre’s office with a look in his eyes that couldn’t be called anything other than bravery as he begs at the man’s knees for the safety of a fifteen-year-old Noah, then no one has to know.)

(No one has to know when he returns, limping and completely unsuccessful.)

Apocrophys happens.

Link’s world whites out in a blur of pain and agony, and all he can do is writhe on the floor as the Noah save his friend. His eyes are gone, completely and definately, looking more like the empty cavities mango worms leave than anything else.

Then, he gets his chance, and he binds possibly the most terrifying monster he’s ever had to stop. (He can’t keep it down.)

Apocrophys walks away, Link’s blood on his hands.

Link doesn’t get back up until he does, aching and with an order he’s more than willing to comply with. Link is going to do what he should have done a long time ago.

Howard Link is going to save his friend (even if he doesn’t know how or where to start).

* * *

Lavi wasn’t there to see Allen suffer. Cross told him that Neah would erode Allen’s entire being, but no one mentioned how much erosion they would do on their own. He wasn’t there to see Lenalee’s face when it was announced that the Noah had taken over, that Allen had lost. He wasn’t there, but he knows that they filled Allen’s heart with more holes than anyone else ever has.

He wasn’t there for a lot of things. He wasn’t even there when Allen came _back_. Instead he was on the same chair he’d been on for a month, covered in invisible strings and being eaten alive by parasites crawling underneath his skin. (If he ignores the other body fluids on the chair and focuses on the blood, he thinks the world should get a little less terrifying.)

(It doesn’t.)

Mango worms are like this, he remembers. The eggs penetrate the skin without anyone noticing, and they grow directly underneath your skin. They grow, ripe, red welts following their arrival, until the worm pops out of the sore. Mango worms are tricky, but they don’t get caught. Bookmen are nothing like mango worms.

The Noahs want information, and there’s a reason they’ve been winning the war. Each one of them is unreasonably good at what they do, and the Noah of Desires is no different.

( _But_ , Lavi thinks bitterly, _his methods are._ )

There’s a part of Lavi that’s jealous of the rest of the world. This is the same part of him that screams into voids and breaks things for fun and cries when it feels like it. It’s a piece of himself he’s learned to control. (Control doesn’t stop the feeling, though.)

They’re eating at his skin, and he’d claw them out if he wasn’t wrapped up with string like a christmas present (funny, considering this is the opposite of a holiday).

* * *

Lenalee saw a group of uniformed CROWs take her friend away. She saw Link, face blank but hands trembling like little leaves in the autumn wind, and she knew. Whatever happened to Allen was out of her control, and whatever happened to everyone else was, too. All she could do was sit there and try not to cry.

Well, for exactly three minutes and twelve seconds she was allowed to try not to cry. After that, Timothy walked up to her with tears in his eyes and asked where their friend was. No one could blame her when she finally started sobbing, nor could they find fault in her when she wrapped the ten-year-old soldier up in a hug that was a little tighter than strictly necessary.

Then, she did what she’d always done. She found a quiet place (which was almost always her brother’s office) and she turned all the lights off. The heavy door closed with only a little grunting, and she pushed it twice to make sure it was really shut. And she screamed.

All of the rage and anguish came out in strangled shrieks that crackled and shrilled in odd places. The noise echoed in the large room, and she felt a pressure in her spine that was definitely going to become a headache later on. She didn’t care.

She continued on like that for what could have been hours. It could have been moments or minutes (which were only thirty seconds shorter than moments, but there was a difference and sometimes, differences needed to be acknowledged) or seconds or years. Lenalee was sure it would have felt the same, all the way through.

In the end, she didn’t feel much better. She still felt like a stiff wind would send her sprawling against the pavement. She could imagine it, tear tracks still on her face as she smiled, softly, at the imagery. Her brother was rubbing off on her.

She didn’t feel better, not really. But she felt a little less like her world was ending, and it gave her a quiet sort of hope she hardly found and never knew what to do with.

(Today, she knew what to do with it.)

Mango worms leave holes in their wake, and Lenalee might not know how to fill those hollows, but she was trying. And she might not have a ward to keep those putrid flies away, but she had the beginnings of one.

(Maybe, just maybe, she can fill her own holes along the way.)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry if the mango worms made you squirmy but they were needed for Plot Reasons and Metaphorical Purposes.
> 
> Anyways, I hope you liked the fic.
> 
> (Validation is fuel to my soul, kudos and comments and hugs will work nicely if that sounds cool to you.)


End file.
